Motor graders are used primarily as finishing tools to sculpt a surface of a construction site to a final shape and contour. Typically, motor graders include many hand-operated controls to steer the wheels of the grader, position a blade, and articulate the front frame of the grader. The blade is adjustably mounted to the front frame to move relatively small quantities of earth from side to side. In addition, the articulation of the front frame is adjusted by rotating the front frame of the grader relative to the rear frame of the grader.
To produce a final surface contour, the blade and the frame may be adjusted to many different positions. Positioning the blade of a motor grader is a complex and time-consuming task. In particular, operations such as, for example, controlling surface elevations, angles, and cut depths may require a significant portion of the operator's attention. Such demands placed on the operator may cause other tasks necessary for the operation of the motor grader to be neglected.
One way to simplify operator control is to provide autonomous control of the blade. One example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,511 issued to Henderson (the '511 patent) on Jun. 9, 1998. The '511 patent discloses a motor grader having a system for automatically controlling the position of a blade. In particular, the motor grader automatically controls the slope of cut relative to a geographic surface. A GPS system and/or a series of sensors are used to determine the relative position of a left bottom edge and a right bottom edge of the blade relative to a desired cutting plane. A controller analyzes the sensed position data and automatically moves the respective edges of the blade to a desired position for creating a particular slope of cut.
Although the system of the '511 patent may autonomously control the slope of cut, operation of the blade may still demand a significant portion of the operator's attention. In particular, the system of the '511 patent may not anticipate cutting-related malfunctions. Furthermore, the system may not automatically take action to prevent such malfunctions. The responsibility of anticipating and preventing such malfunctions may still fall on the operator and may demand such attention, such that other tasks necessary for the operation of the motor grader could be neglected.
The disclosed system is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.